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8:54 am

Tue December 21, 2010

Ballot Recount Questioned

Phoenix, AZ – The issue arose when a count of the ballots after last month'selection showed the margin of defeat for Proposition 112 was just128 votes. That triggered an automatic recount which wascompleted Monday. The measure still went down, but by 194 votes.The secretary of state's office said that's within 99-point-996percent of 1.5 million people who voted on the measure. But whatmakes it interesting is that the recount, like the originaltally, is done by scanner. Maricopa County Elections DirectorKaren Osborne said that theoretically, there should be no change.But she said that would only be in a perfect world.

(Whether you put them through the same machine or not, you havehandled those ballots. They have gone through. Everything in theworld has happened to them. And now you're going to count themagain. And you're going to have stray marks. You're going to havesomebody drops them on the floor.)

Osborne said the closeness of the recount to the original tallyproves the system works. For the record, Proposition 112 wouldhave required that petitions for ballot measures be submitted tothe state in early May of election years, two months earlier thanthe current deadline. There was no active campaign for or againstthe measure. For Arizona Public Radio this is Howard Fischer.